HP Premier Services will be offered in four tiers, each with a different level of individual consultation. All customers will get basic online and telephone support as well as access to new releases, patches and upgrades.

In the Premier Response tier, a customer will be paired with an engineer who will learn the customer's environment and offer solutions when problems occur. In the Premier Advisory tier, that engineer can also help with planning for future releases, and advise the customer of new patches and best practices. The Premier Business tier offers a dedicated manager to look after the system, and in the Premier Team Extend tier, HP assumes control of the system in an outsourcing arrangement.

The service offering will primarily support HP's Business Technology Optimization (BTO) line of software, which includes software for business service management (BSM) and IT service management. The company can also arrange support for HP hardware and other HP software to be included in the package as well.

The IDG News Service